Apple Finally Learns AI Is The New UI

#AI

Apple Finally Learns AI Is The New UI

Peaks:

1. All of the announcements are stuff other companies are already doing, from Spotify to Facebook to Android. Second: They’re all about algorithms, search, curation, and deep learning, not what we usually think of as “design.” This year’s WWDC was a tacit admission that Apple needed to play catch-up. Cupertino spent so much energy over the past five years paying attention to the surface details of their products, it ignored a seismic shift in the industry: AI is the new UI.

AI won’t exterminate us. It will empower us.

Peaks:

1. In this world of viruses, cyber-crime and cyber-weapons, I welcome an open and vigorous debate about what level of autonomy to grant computers, but that debate is not about AI research. If unjustified fears lead us to constrain AI, we could lose out on advances that could greatly benefit humanity — and even save lives. Allowing fear to guide us is not intelligent.

Google on Artificial-Intelligence Panic: Get a Grip

Peaks:

1. Whether it’s Terminator coming to blow us up or mad scientists looking to create quite perverted women robots, this narrative has somehow managed to dominate the entire landscape, which we find really quite remarkable. The narrative has shifted from ‘Isn’t it terrible that AI has been such a failure?’ to ‘Isn’t it terrible that AI has been such a success?’
2. The way we think about AI is that it’s going to be a hugely powerful tool that we control and that we direct, whose capabilities we limit, just as you do with any other tool that we have in the world around us, whether they’re washing machines or tractors. We’re building them to empower humanity and not to destroy us.

#VC

The Babe Ruth Effect in Venture Capital

Peaks:

1. The Babe Ruth effect is hard to internalize because people are generally predisposed to avoid losses. Behavioral economists have famously demonstrated that people feel a lot worse about losses of a given size than they feel good about gains of the same size. Losing money feels bad, even if it is part of an investment strategy that succeeds in aggregate.

#Apple

Apple Gets Its Music Streaming and Gives News Another Try

Open Sourcing Is No Longer Optional, Not Even for Apple | WIRED

Peaks:

1. Making Swift open source means very little. Only the version that Apple supports on their devices matter and that is still subject to the whims and schedule of Apple. This is little more than a publicity/goodwill stunt and maybe getting people to do their work for them at no charge.

#Software

Ex-BlackBerry Co-CEO Talks Publicly for the First Time

Peaks:

1. He said with the iPhone and Google’s Android phones emerging strong he strongly believed BlackBerry needed to open up its popular BlackBerry messenger service to other smartphone platforms. He noted that people thought BlackBerry made much of its money on hardware but he said it really made money on services. BlackBerry, however, didn’t allow BBM on other platforms until after he left the company and after messaging aps like WhatsApp became popular.

Software Is Eating The Job Market

Peaks:

1. Software is eating the world.

2. Data science is just the tip of the iceberg.

#Hardware

Does Hardware Even Matter Anymore?

Peaks:

1. There are important implications for companies. For corporate leaders, one of the key lessons is that higher levels of abstraction shrink the entry barriers to numerous businesses — it seems that everyone can develop a new digital product. Companies need to be constantly on the alert for the next software-based product that might pose a competitive threat.

#Thinking

How to Beat the Bots

Peaks:

1. Businesses have conveniently forgotten that they have responsibility for developing the skills of the workforce. Only a few degrees in key professions (accounting, medicine, law, engineering) provide much of the technical background needed to do the work. Even then, to get beyond the staff level you need a lot of on-the-job training. Businesses need to again take pride in developing their people.
2. I’m more than happy to have robots take all of the jobs, particularly the boring, menial and often soul destroying jobs they work without complaint. We should be embracing the idea of working less with more leisure time to spend with our friends and family and pursuing our dreams. Unfortunately, the benefits of automation and the vast wealth it produces are directed to an ever shrinking number of individuals whose greed knows no bounds.